Recipe of the Day: Peanut Thai Noodle Salad

Love It: Even avowed peanut butter haters enjoy sesame noodles. This recipe grinds its own, making a sweet-tangy sauce with nutty richness.

Fear It: Peanuts do have lots of fat, but it’s generally the healthy kind, so you only need to worry here if you have a peanut allergy.

Teach It: In a pan-saving technique, the recipe calls for throwing the veggies into the pasta pot during the last bit of cooking. Excellent! A fast and simple way to take a little crunch off and make the nutrients more available.

Eat It: While the recipe calls for eating the dish right away, while it’s still warm, these sort of nutty noodles are also great cold. They make a great lunch at work or school.

Peanut Thai Noodle Salad
Source: Kraft Foods
Yield: 1 serving

• 1 Tbsp. lime juice
  
• 2 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce
  
• 2 teaspoons honey
  
• 2 Tbsp. PLANTERS Dry Roasted Unsalted Peanuts, divided
  
• 2 ounces rotini pasta, uncooked
  
• 4 baby carrots, cut into thin strips
  
• ¼ cup snow pea pods, cut into thin strips
  
• ½ medium red pepper, cut into thin strips
  

PLACE lime juice, soy sauce, honey and 1 Tbsp. of the peanuts in a blender or food processor; cover. Blend until smooth; set aside.
COOK pasta as directed on package, adding carrots, pea pods and peppers to boiling water during the last 3 min. of cooking time. Drain pasta and vegetables in a colander; transfer to a serving bowl. Combine pasta and vegetables with peanut sauce and remaining peanuts.
ENJOY grapes for dessert.
SERVE a glass of water with the meal.

Nutritional notes:
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories 440
Total fat 11g
Saturated fat 1.5g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 400mg
Carbohydrate 78g
Dietary fiber 7g
Sugars 29g
Protein 15g
Vitamin A 150%DV
Vitamin C 250%DV
Calcium 6%DV
Iron 25%DV

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Chicken with Ginger

Note: This entry was published first on June 11, 2005. I have to say, my own description of this recipe is making me feel eager to try it again as it sounds pretty tasty. And me producing a pretty tasty stir fry isn’t exactly an everyday event.

 

Dinner tonight featured an Asian-style dish from the pages of Everyday Food magazine. I suppose it could have been made in a wok, but due to a shortage of saucepans, I had occupied the wok with boiling the frozen potstickers. It did fine in our 12-inch sauté pan, though.

 

As for flavor, it had that slightly sweet but pungent taste I usually associate with good Chinese takeout. The ginger wasn’t as spicy as I would have expected with half a cup floating around, but that might be because of the soaking.

 

If you’re fast with a chef’s knife, this dish should be easy for you. Myself, I guessed with all the measurements (I rarely measure when I’m not baking these days) to shave off some time to compensate for my always slow and methodical knifework.

 

Chicken with Ginger
Source: Everyday Food
Yield: 4 servings

 

• 1 three-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into 1/8-inch-thick matchsticks (1/2 cup)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ½ cup sliced scallions

 

1. Soak ginger in cold water 10 minutes; drain.

 

2. Heat oil in a skillet over high heat; brown chicken in two batches, 6 to 8 minutes. Set aside.

 

3. In same skillet over medium heat, cook ginger, onion, and garlic, stirring until browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Add soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar; cook over high heat until thick, 3 to 4 minutes. Add chicken; stir to warm. Remove from heat; stir in scallions.

 

Notes:

You can also serve this Asian dish over Chinese noodles, available in most supermarkets, or steamed rice.

 

Nutritional information per serving:

Per serving: 327 calories; 9.2 grams fat; 41.7 grams protein; 18.3 grams carbohydrates; 1.9 grams fiber

 

 

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Worms and Eyeballs

Note: Originally posted on my old site on June 14, 2005. I’ve made the noodles since then — still delicious!

 

I’ve found a new love: bucatini rigati. This perfect pasta resembles thick spaghetti, being long and cylindrical. However, the strands are hollow and have tiny ridges, both great features for picking up sauce. Combined with the substantial texture of the pasta (cooked al dente), it appeals to all my preferences.

 

As for the dish I used it in, it’s somewhat hit and miss, much like my track record with all of Rachael Ray’s recipes. Sometimes, she comes up with something delicious that’s a hit with everyone (such as her Apricot Chicken or her Bacon and Black Bean Smash), but on occasion, her recipes just look better than they taste (see Super Sloppy Joes).

 

In this case, the worms easily wriggled their way down my throat, but I choked on the eyeballs.

 

The “worms” are, of course, the bucatini, along with the matchstick-cut carrots, snow peas, red bell peppers and bean sprouts. With a light coat of soy sauce, it tasted like a fresher, less greasy and more delicious version of lo mein.

 

The “eyeballs” were chicken meatballs. I’ve had chicken dumplings, but I’ve never cooked with ground chicken. It definitely feels slimier than ground beef. The recipe here looks like it ought to be good, but I found that the ginger overwhelmed the other flavors, even though I think I ended up with less ginger than was called for. Especially with the milder, sweeter poultry in play, I had the uncomfortable sensation of eating a chicken cookie. Maybe it was the hoisin sauce, maybe it was using ground chicken instead of ground chicken breast (I couldn’t find it), maybe it was me using two pounds of chicken instead of 1 1/2 (it only came in 1-pound packages). But they were unappealing. Maybe beef or pork would have been better. Maybe.

 

However, the worms more than made up for the overly sweet eyeballs. If I make it again, it’ll be a nightcrawler-only affair.

 

 

Worms and Eyeballs
Source: Rachael Ray
Yield: 4 servings

 

• 1 ½ lbs. ground chicken breast
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped ginger root
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 1 small red pepper, 1/4 finely chopped and the remainder thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce, Chinese style barbecue sauce
• Salt and coarse black pepper
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• ¾ small red bell pepper, sliced
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1 cup bean spouts
• 1 cup snow pea pods, julienne cut
• 1 lb. bucatini, cooked to al dente
• ¼ to 1/3 cup dark soy (Tamari) sauce, eyeball it

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

 

Combine chicken, garlic, ginger, scallions, finely chopped red bell pepper, hoisin and salt and pepper. Roll meatballs into the size of chicken eyeballs. Place balls on a nonstick cookie sheet and coat lightly with vegetable oil, about 1 1/2 tablespoons. Roll balls around with your hands to gently coat with the oil. Roast the chicken eyeballs 10 to 12 minutes in a very hot oven.

 

About 5 minutes from the meatballs coming out of the oven, start stir-frying the veggies. Heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Add the sliced red bell pepper, carrots, spouts and pea pods to hot pan. Stir fry 1 minute, then drain noodles and add them to the vegetables. Add dark soy sauce to the noodles and toss to combine and evenly coat.

 

Transfer noodles to a serving platter and top with chicken eyeballs.

 

 

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